The Narcissism of Politics

“Nowhere are prejudices more mistaken for truth, passion for reason, and invective for documentation than in politics. This is a realm, peopled only by villains or heroes, in which everything is black or white and gray is a forbidden color.” ~ John Mason Brown, Through These Men (1956)

I sometimes entertain myself with a thought experiment in which people are evolved from dogs, with their sunny, goofy, manic natures. We couldn’t be any worse than the genocidal primates we are now.

Would intelligent dogs be as narcissistic as humans, splitting things into a non-existent pure good and pure evil? I don’t know. Would they believe in the force and fraud of politics? It’s impossible to tell, because there are no intelligent, self-aware dogs.

Would dogs have a “Garden of Eden” myth in which the first thing they felt when they became self-aware was shame because they were exposed? Would they have a “Cain and Abel” myth in which murder was bought into their world because of feelings of humiliation and the desire for revenge? Who knows? We can only imagine.

Still, I just can’t imagine dogs going to war. Cats are a different story, like the Kzin in Larry Niven’s “Ringworld” series. They might do it out of pure feline carnivore meanness.

Not only is politics based on force and fraud, it is also, as Brown pointed out, based on the belief in pure good and pure evil. It’s why

so many of the people who supported a buffoon like George Bush and thought he was a great President were horrified that Obama was elected to office (“He’ll destroy the United States!”) and why those who supported Obama were shocked to discover he was just a continuation of Bush, only a little worse.

When it comes to politics, the mass of people never learn, because the mass of people cannot think, only feel; they don’t follow principles, only leaders. And they are always convinced their guy is Good and his opponent is Evil.

After splitting everything into pure good and pure evil, the next step is to see yourself (meaning your political party) as the Good Guys, meaning you have to project all badness onto the other party. It’s why I encountered people who said Bush was a psychopath, or evil, or stupid – and why I encountered people who said the same thing about Obama.

In reality there’s about a dime’s worth of difference between Bush and Obama. Neither is evil, just incompetent (I am reminded of what Napoleon said: “Never attribute to evil that which can be explained by incompetence”).

I don’t think it’s particularly hard to manipulate mobs of people. Tell them they’re under attack by evil people, tell them they’re good (the way Bush said the United States was attacked for its goodness by the Evil Ones), and watch them regress into simple-minded, narcissistic infants and then march off to war.

I see as incredibly dangerous any philosophy that defines the world as good versus evil – Nazism, Communism, or, among some libertarians, Objectivism.

It’d be a far better world if politics didn’t exist. But even the existence of politics isn’t the real problem. The real problem is the narcissism of human beings and their tendency to split everything into pure good and pure evil, with the result of projecting “evil” onto people and attempting to destroy them through force.

Comments

"When it comes to politics, the mass of people never learn, because the mass of people cannot think, only feel; they don’t follow principles, only leaders."

This MAY be overstating things a bit.

My impression is that most people don't follow leaders so much as hold their nose and pick the least offensive alternative (according to their values). And that they do generally follow principles, but inconsistently; and they are easily taken advantage of, by playing on their emotions, particularly on their fears. And I think people do usually learn over time.

In other words I don't have quite the black and white view of the average Joe as you do. ;-)

Great use of dogs to help explain the human condition! I sometimes think STR should REQUIRE dog examples in every column, but that would be going too far.

I disagree with you on incompetence vs evil, however: Bush, for instance, PLANNED to invade Iraq even before the 2000 elections. That's not incompetence; it's criminal behavior (invading another nation on false pretenses -- and after campaigining on "a humble foreign policy") including mass murder. If "evil" means anything -- I'm talking about the here-and-now world, not anything supernatural -- then I'd say that qualifies.

As for ideologies and the tendency to see everything in black or white, them or us, completely true or not-true -- for the most part, I agree.

The psychiatric definition of narcissism is splitting things into airtight compartments of all-good and all-bad, pure good and pure evil. It doesn't matter if it's Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, or Sociopathic/Psychopathic Personality Disorder.

All you have to do, on a mass scale, if look at Communism, Nazism, or any genocidal monotheistic religions --Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Where do you think the idea of an all-good God and an all-bad Devil came from?

It also applies to Rand's religion and her close-minded fanatical followers.

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)." ~ Ayn Rand

Strange, I do not see anything even vaguely resembling, “splitting things into airtight compartments of all-good and all-bad, pure good and pure evil,” in the diagnostic criteria for “narcissistic personality disorder” listed below.

Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

The opposite of indivualism is not collectivism. That's a straw man. True opposites are freedom versus the State, the Political Means versus the Economic Means.

No one is "an individual." Our "self" is created by our relationships with other people. You can't be a father without a child, a spouse without a husband of wife, etc. No one is "independent," because we are involved in an infinite web of relationships with other people, the environmetnt, etc. Are of us are part of a "collective."

Rand is a complete fraud, a third-rate philosoper, a philodoxer.

Too bad "libertarians" waste their time with nonsense. I've yet to meet one who understood even the basics of Object Relations Theory, which inn one form or other, runs backs thousands of years.

Self may be a remnant to be left.
'Tis just an element of compound words.
As in -self originating-.
Or would it be -self culture-?
Either way, remain -self willed-.
One should always look at life as being dreadless.
One must have the ability -to hold forth-.
There are those in this world that fail -to put in mind-.

And, one of the funniest things I encounter, Bob, is someone who has trouble understanding simple sentence structure. The correct tense is "understand", Bob, not "understood". And, attacking the messenger with name-calling really shows the paper tiger behind your arguments.